It all started with a pale ale

Stone Brewing Company
celebrates 10 years

By Darcy Leigh Richardson | darcy@tlnews.net

Stone Brewery employee Jim Hurley, of San Marcos, pours a sample of beer Saturday during the Stone Brewery 10th Anniversary Celebration in Escondido. Christian Calabria | christian@tlnews.net

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Greg Koch, chief executive officer of Stone Brewing Company, remembers the first beer he ever drank.

"It was a can my friend had found and we had to sneak it away until I had a chance to drink it," Koch said. "It was horrible beer - I don't remember the name of it. It must have been in 1976 or 1977."

It might have been that taste that later inspired Koch to join forces with Steve Wagner, 48, a musician and home brew enthusiast, to create the kind of beer he liked to drink.

"Steve and I met in the music industry only briefly in 1989. I was doing production and I was a wannabe musician," Koch, 42, said. "I never had a real career before this one now, just a few summer jobs."

As a testament to Koch's and Wagner's success, both three-hour sessions of Stone's 10th Anniversary Celebration Saturday were sold out - totaling 5,000 participants, 40 specialty breweries and six different food vendors.

The Stone Brewery World Bistro and Gardens, anticipated to open around mid-October, offered samples of its organic and varied fare, including a Ruination Double India Pale Ale butterscotch bread pudding, cold soba noodle salad and a smoked porter pork tenderloin.

"The menu has pretty much been set: eclectic, organic, healthy and fun," said Tyler Williams, general manager of the restaurant and beer garden facility. "There's something for everybody, even a vegan dish that a meat eater would eat."

Williams said the restaurant will seat 300 guests and the gardens approximately 250 more. The restaurant is hiring for both front- and back-of-the-house positions.

"Our food matches our beer profile - outgoing and exciting with no compromise," Williams said. "I was one of Greg's first accounts 10 years ago to the date. I was manager of the Del Mar Fish Market."

Stone's first customer was Pizza Port of Solana Beach, a brewpub with another location in Carlsbad. Stone produced only draft beer for the first 10 months of its existence, according to Koch.

"We did a three month anniversary and about 300 people came to that one," Koch said. "I knew back then we had great beer, but other folks had yet to figure it out."

The brewery started in 1996 in an industrial complex in San Marcos. San Marcos Trading Company CEO Jamie Hickerson remembers when Stone's first anniversary was held in his company's parking lot.

"We used to trade snacks with them, give them fruits and nuts, and we used to go over there for tastings on Fridays," Hickerson said. "But then they had the first anniversary in our parking lot and the second anniversary became crazy."

One of Hickerson's newest organic snacks, Arrogant Almonds, were thrown to festival participants from its booth Saturday.

"For a couple years we talked about doing a custom roast," Hickerson said. "We experimented with (Stone's) Arrogant Bastard Ale, and it has enough flavor that it enhances the nut. People seem to like them."

Hickerson participates in the anniversary events because he enjoys the camaraderie among attendees.

"People are drinking, but they're not out to get drunk. The people who are here really want to be here," Hickerson said.

According to Koch, people traveled from Boston, North Carolina, Las Vegas and Japan for the event. Toshi Ishii, an attendee from Japan, said he interned in the United States in 1998 to learn how to brew beer at home.

"Many Japanese beers are lagers, like Kirin and Asahi," Ishii said. "Stone doesn't distribute in Japan, but I can make Stone beer by myself at home. Stone's product is hoppier and has a higher quality. The India Pale Ale is my favorite."

Stone produced a special 10th Anniversary India Pale Ale that was the 8,000th beer attendee Greg Nowatzki has sampled since he began keeping records in 1995. Nowatzki, 40, a certified public accountant for a Las Vegas firm, started with the goal of sampling 1,000 different beers in his lifetime.

"I planned it so Stone's 10th Anniversary Pale Ale would be my 8,000th, and it was fantastic," Nowatzki said. "I grew up in Milwaukee but what do you have there? Pabst and Miller. I like beers where the hops are much more over the top compared to the malt. . . . I live to go to these festivals."

Nowatzki gave a thumbs-up to Mark Purciel's Buccaneer Blonde from Purciel's brewery, Oceanside Ale Works. Purciel, a specialty brewer at the festival, is a Carlsbad High School geometry teacher who has several local accounts for his brews, including Chili's in Oceanside and Tom Giblin's in Carlsbad.

"I'm a homebrewer spun way out of control," Purciel joked. "I would love to teach brew making."

As with other anniversaries in the past, attendees have dyed their hair green, blue or red in support of Stone's four local charities, one of which is the Boys & Girls Club of San Marcos.

"Last year we received $16,000," said Shelly Figueroa, CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of San Marcos. "The funds go to everything from staffing to overhead. The event is very well run. A lot of people don't think beer and kids go together, but Stone has been philanthropic from the beginning."

Escondido businessman John Masson, CEO of Masson and Associates, a civil engineering company, chose to dye his hair green for the cause this year.

"I'm going to net over $4,500 this year (for the charity)," Masson said. "I dyed it the 26th of August and I got a lot of ‘Wows' because it was very florescent. I'm shaving it all off this week."

Stone distributes in 20 U.S. states and will add Michigan later this month.
"What I like most about my job is the team here and what we have been able to create," Koch said. "That's the beautiful thing about beer - there are no last comments. If the comments begin and end with TV commercials, you'll never understand what I'm talking about."

Reach reporter Darcy Leigh Richardson at 760.752.6753.